Method and system for performing a buy or bid auction

ABSTRACT

A method and system to facilitate an electronic commerce transaction includes receiving an offer for an item from a user of an electronic commerce system. The item is available for purchase via an auction facilitated by the electronic commerce system. The item is automatically awarded to the user if the offer is at or above a posted selling price.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001] This application is a continuation of pending U.S. applicationSer. No. 09/706,849, filed Nov. 7, 2000, which is a continuation of U.S.application Ser. No. 08/624,259, now issued U.S. Pat. No. 6,243,691,filed Mar. 29, 1996.

[0002] This application is related to copending patent application Ser.No. ______, entitled “Method and System for Validating a Bid”, filed______; patent application Ser. No. ______, entitled “Method and Systemfor Offering an Item for Sale Using a User-Selectable Bid Indicia, filed______; patent application Ser. No. ______, entitled “Method and Systemfor Updating Information On a Merchandise Catalog Page”, filed ______;patent application Ser. No. ______, entitled “Method and System forAutomatically Adjusting a Posted Selling Price”, filed ______; patentapplication Ser. No., ______, entitled “Method and System for Performinga Bid Quantity Adjustment”, filed ______; patent application Ser. No.______, entitled “Method and System for Providing Status Updates”, filed______; patent application Ser. No. ______, entitled “Method and Systemfor Adjusting a Close Time of an Auction”, filed ______; patentapplication Ser. No. ______, entitled “Method and System for Performinga Progressive Auction”, filed ______; patent application Ser. No.______, entitled “Method and System for Performing Proxy Bidding”, filed______; patent application Ser. No. ______, entitled “Method and Systemfor Providing Simultaneous On-Line Auctions”, filed ______; eachcommonly assigned with the present invention.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0003] 1. Field of the Invention

[0004] The present invention relates generally to electronic commerceand more particularly to conducting an interactive auction over anelectronic network.

[0005] 2. Background of the Invention

[0006] Auctions usually take the form of a physical gathering of biddersassembled together within an auction house. Auctions presenting morevaluable, collectible merchandise, such as art, coins and antiques, areoften preceded by preparation of a catalog of merchandise, circulated tointerested parties in advance of the gathering at the auction house,where bidding by those physically present will take place. For auctionsof more mundane items, such as household possessions, estate sales andthe like, the interested bidders simply appear at the appointed time andplace and bid on merchandise in which they are interested.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0007] A method and system to facilitate an electronic commercetransaction includes receiving an offer for an item from a user of anelectronic commerce system. The item is available for purchase via anauction facilitated by the electronic commerce system. The item isautomatically awarded to the user if the offer is at or above a postedselling price.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0008] An exemplary embodiment of the present invention is illustratedin the accompanying drawings in which like references include similarelements and in which:

[0009]FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary computer environment forimplementing the system and method of the present invention;

[0010]FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary merchandise catalog page offeringan item for sale via electronic auction on the Internet's World WideWeb;

[0011]FIG. 3 depicts an exemplary bid form for bidding on an auctionitem;

[0012]FIG. 4 is a block diagram of components illustrating an exemplaryembodiment of the present invention;

[0013]FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary bid validator andits method of operation;

[0014]FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary auction managerand its method of operation;

[0015]FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary bid manager andits method of operation;

[0016]FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary electronic mailmessenger and its method of operation;

[0017]FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary standard auctionformat and its method of operation;

[0018]FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary Dutch auctionformat and its method of operation;

[0019]FIG. 11 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary progressiveauction format and its method of operation;

[0020]FIG. 12 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary buy or bid saleformat and its method of operation;

[0021]FIG. 13 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary bid quantitydetermination and its method of operation; and

[0022]FIG. 14 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary markdown priceadjustment and its method of operation.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0023] A method and system for performing a Buy or Bid auction aredisclosed. In the following description, for the purposes ofexplanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to providea thorough understanding of the present invention. It will be evident,however, to one skilled in the art that the present invention may bepracticed without these specific details.

[0024] An exemplary system includes a database for maintainingdescriptions of the merchandise for auction, the bids, and otherrelevant information in a commercially available database system.Database searches may be performed periodically to check for new itemsto be made visible to potential bidders. Such periodic searching allowsan individual charged with maintaining this system to load relevantinformation into the database at his or her leisure. Once the databaseis loaded with information about the item and the item is scheduled forpresentation to potential bidders, the system takes the merchandiseinformation and creates a human readable catalog page for a viewing overa public network such as the Internet's World Wide Web. Bidders are thenable to view the new item for auction and to place their bids. Thesecatalog pages preferably contain the current high bid, bid increment,quantity available, merchandise description, and picture of the item.

[0025] Upon accessing a public network and seeing an item's catalogpage, the bidder may press a button on the catalog page or take somesimilar action which causes a bid form to be displayed on the screen.The bidder then enters the information necessary to place a bid, such astheir name and address, bid amount, payment information, etc., and thenpresses a bid submission button, or takes a similar action which sendsthe bid to the system.

[0026] The system receives the electronic bid information and places itin the bid database. Because this new bid will, in general, be a bid fora higher amount than was last bid by another party, the system willregenerate the item's catalog page. This updated catalog page will thenshow the new high bid to any prospective bidders who later access thatcatalog page.

[0027] Because most bidders will not, in general, be accessing thenetwork and viewing the merchandise catalog pages as they are updatedwith new high bids, the system may send electronic mail notifications tobidders who have been outbid by the just-placed bid. These electronicmail notification messages may contain the relevant merchandiseinformation, the current high bid, the bid increment, etc., andencourage the bidder to submit a new and higher bid to outbid thecurrent high bidder. These electronic mail notification messages allowthe bidder to enter a new bid by replying to the electronic mail messageand sending it back to the system.

[0028] Upon receiving a new or revised bid via electronic mail, thesystem follows the same set of actions as when the bidder places a bidusing the electronic bid form when viewing a merchandise catalog page,namely, the system extracts the relevant bid information from theelectronic mail message, deposits this information in the bid database,and then updates the merchandise catalog page as appropriate. Such anelectronic mail message bid may further cause a new round of electronicmail notifications to go out to the recently outbid bidders.

[0029] This process may continue until the system detects that the itemis scheduled to be closed for further bidding or another closing triggeris detected. At this point, the system closes the auction by updatingthe merchandise catalog page with the final winning bid information andby sending electronic mail notifications to both the winning bidder orbidders and the losing bidder or bidders.

[0030] The exemplary embodiment of the present invention provides anelectronic auction method and system for presenting merchandise for saleat auction to customers over an electronic network, such as theInternet's World Wide Web. Potential customers are presented with aseries of descriptive merchandise catalog pages through which they maynavigate to find items (lots) of interest. Upon finding a lot ofinterest, customers may click a button on screen to display a form forplacing a bid on the lot. After submitting this bid, the electronicauction system records the bid and updates the lot's merchandise catalogpage to show the current high bid or bids and to whom such bids areattributable. When the auction is closed, after a period of no biddingactivity, at a predetermined time, or when a desired sales volume isreached, the electronic auction system notifies the winning and losingbidders by electronic mail and posts a list of the winning bidders onthe closed lot's merchandise catalog page.

[0031] The exemplary embodiment of the present invention may beimplemented as a computer program 248 running on a central server hostcomputer 250, shown in FIG. 1, attached to a wide area network 275accessible by many potential customers through remote terminals 210. Anexemplary network for implementing the present invention is the Internetwhich is accessible by a significant percentage of the world population,although the network may also be a local area or limited area accessiblenetwork. Potential customers are presented at screen 280 withmerchandise catalog pages, such as the one shown in FIG. 2, generated bymerchandise catalog page generator 25 shown in FIG. 4. Each merchandisecatalog page includes several action buttons 5 that allow the customerto move from catalog page to catalog page and to place bids usingkeyboard 240 and pointing device 260. The user may call up an index ofavailable merchandise by pressing button 7 or may return to a centralhome page by pressing button 9.

[0032] By pressing bid button 1 in FIG. 2, the customer is presentedwith a bid form such as the one shown in FIG. 3. The customer fills outthe required information in the bid form and presses “Place Bid” button2 to send the bid to the electronic auction system for processing. Otherequivalent means for submitting a bid could be used, as understood bythose skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains.

[0033]FIG. 4 illustrates a high level block diagram of the electronicauction system according to one embodiment of the present invention. Asshown, information from bid form 20 is received by the electronicauction system where it is processed by bid validator 21. Bid validator21 examines the bid information entered by the customer on bid form 20to ensure that the bid is properly formatted, all necessary data ispresent, and the data values entered look credible. Exemplary functionsof bid validator 21 include verifying credit card information entered bythe customer, checking that a complete name and shipping address hasbeen entered, that the proper state abbreviation and zip code have beenentered, that an appropriate bid amount has been entered, and that atelephone or facsimile number has been entered. Once the bid informationhas been validated, the bid validator 21 places the bid in bid database31.

[0034] Auction manager 26 may frequently query the bid database 31 tosee if any new bids have been placed. If new bids are found during thequery, then auction manager 26 calculates the current high bidder orbidders and instructs merchandise catalog page generator 25 toregenerate a catalog page with the updated bid information.

[0035] Auction manager 26 is also responsible for opening and closingauctions. This entails making merchandise lots available for bidding bycustomers and disabling their associated buy or bid features on themerchandise pages that have been posted to potential bidders but haveclosed. When auction manager 26 determines that a new lot should beopened for bidding or an available lot should be closed, it instructsmerchandise catalog page generator 25 to create or update themerchandise catalog pages for the appropriate lots.

[0036] Electronic mail messenger 27 frequently queries bid database 31for bids recently marked by auction manager 26 as having been outbid oras having won an item in a recently closed auction. If such bids arefound, the electronic mail messenger 27 formats an appropriateelectronic mail notification message 24 and sends this message to thecustomer. Many customers read their electronic mail throughout the day,making this a convenient mechanism for keeping them informed about thestatus of merchandise on which they are actively bidding. Bidders mayreply to an electronic mail notification message 24 informing them thatthey have been outbid by including an increased bid amount in the replymessage. An electronic mail bid 22 sent in reply to the notification isreceived by the electronic auction system and processed by bid validator21 as described above.

[0037]FIG. 5 illustrates in detail an exemplary procedure of bidvalidation as accomplished by bid validator 21 shown in FIG. 4. A bid isreceived by bid validator 21 and the customer is looked up at step 41 incustomer database 28. If no customer record exists for the customer thena new customer record is created 42 and placed in customer database 28.From there, the bid information is validated 43 as previously described.If the bid data includes one or more errors, then an error message isreturned 44 to the bidder, for example in the form of a well-formattedpage posted across the network, itemizing the errors found in the bid.If the bid is valid, as found in step 43, then the bid is placed 46 inbid database 31.

[0038]FIG. 6 provides a detailed illustration of exemplary procedurescarried out by auction manager 26. Auction manager 26 may be acontinuously running system that begins by getting the current time asat step 51. It then checks to see if any new items for sale are to beopened by examining the merchandise database to see if any newmerchandise items are scheduled to be made available for bidding bycustomers at or before the current time. Operator 300, or some automatedsubstitute, may upload merchandise and scheduling information to thedatabase, as shown in FIG. 1. If new merchandise items are scheduled forposting, these items are opened for bidding 52. The auction manager thenexamines the merchandise database to see if any merchandise items arescheduled to be closed from customer bidding. If so, these items areclosed from bidding 53. Auction manager 26 then examines the merchandisedatabase to see if any merchandise items posted with a price markdownfeature are scheduled to have their prices adjusted. If so, the pricesof these items are adjusted 54 in accordance with the particular item'sprice adjustment parameters. Such parameters may include biddingactivity over time, amount of bids received, and number of items bidfor. Auction manager 26 then updates 55 the bid list for open items byrecalculating the current high bidder list and regenerating themerchandise catalog pages 56 to reflect these new bids. This step ismore fully described below with reference to FIG. 7.

[0039]FIG. 7 illustrates exemplary procedures carried out by the bidmanager in updating the bid list for open items 55 as shown in FIG. 6.The bid manager begins by checking 61 if there are more merchandiseitems to be processed. If such items are found, the bid manager selects62 a merchandise item to process and queries 64 the bid database forbids for this item. These bids are sorted 65 using a variety ofdifferent priority ranking schemes depending upon the auction method andsystem used for the particular merchandise item, as described in moredetail below. Then, the bids are marked 66 as either successful orunsuccessful depending upon the bid price of the respective bids and thequantity of the item being bid on relative to the quantity of the itembeing auctioned. In an exemplary embodiment, a quantity of an item maybe put up for auction, and individual bidders may bid on any quantity ofthe item desired, up to the quantity of the item being auctioned.

[0040] The bid manager then checks 67 to see if there are any activeproxy bids marked as unsuccessful. A proxy bid is a special bid typethat allows auction manager 26 to automatically bid on the bidder'sbehalf up to a limited amount established by the bidder when his or herinitial bid is placed. The auction manager will increase the bid asnecessary up to the limit amount. This feature allows the customer toget the lowest possible price without exceeding a limit preferablyestablished when the bid is entered. If there are active proxy bidsmarked as unsuccessful, then the bid manager increments 69 the proxybids by a preset bid increment. This procedure of sorting 65 marking 66bids and incrementing 69 the proxy bids as required continues untileither there are no additional proxy bids marked as unsuccessful or theproxy limits have been reached on the proxy bids. At this point, biddatabase 31 is updated 68 with the marked bids. This process is thenrepeated for each merchandise lot open at the current time for biddingby customers.

[0041]FIG. 8 illustrates exemplary procedures carried out by electronicmail messenger 27 which notifies bidders when they have been outbid.When marked bids are updated in bid database 31 as shown in FIG. 7,electronic mail messenger 27 detects 81 the presence of these markedbids and then looks up 82 the customer's electronic mail address andlooks up 83 inventory information on the item desired by the bidder.With this information, electronic mail messenger 27 constructs 84 anelectronic mail message informing the bidder that he or she has beenoutbid. Once constructed, the electronic mail notification message 24 issent to the bidder as shown at step 85.

[0042] Various components of the electronic auction system cancommunicate between themselves in a variety of ways. In an exemplaryembodiment, bid validator 21, auction manager 26, and electronic mailmessenger 27 communicate by adding, marking, and updating records in thevarious databases. Each of these components periodically checks at leastone of the databases to see if anything relevant to their respectivefunctions has changed and take action accordingly. However, thecomponents could send direct messages between themselves or call eachother by means of program subroutines to signal important events thatwould require one or the other component to update its state.

[0043] A variety of different auction formats may be implemented usingthe basic technique described above. The simplest is the “StandardAuction” format, whereby the electronic auction system awards themerchandise to the top bidder or bidders in accordance with their bidsonce bidding has stopped. Using this format, if there is a plurality ofa specific item, the system awards the merchandise to the top bidders.Bidders may bid on more than one unit, and different successful bidderswill, in general, pay different prices for an item.

[0044]FIG. 9 illustrates the exemplary Standard Auction format where bidmanager 55, shown in FIG. 6, determines which bids to mark as successfulor unsuccessful, as shown in step 66 in FIG. 7. Bid manager 55 begins bysorting 91 the bids by amount of the bid. If there are bids remaining tobe processed, determined at step 97, the highest remaining bid isselected 98 to be checked. If the bid is below the minimum bid allowedfor the particular merchandise item, as determined at step 93, the bidis marked 99 as unsuccessful. If not, the bid is checked 94 to see ifthe quantity may be satisfied. A bid may be satisfied if the quantity ofthe item bid upon is available. This information is available fromauction database 29. If not, then the bid is marked 99 as unsuccessful.Optionally, the system could ask the user if a lesser quantity than bidupon will be acceptable, as shown in FIG. 2 at box 310. If the bidquantity can be satisfied, as determined at step 94, then the bid ismarked 95 as successful and the item quantity remaining, recorded inauction database 29, is decremented 96 by the bid quantity. After thequantity remaining is decremented 96, and if, as determined at step 97,there are still bids remaining to be marked, the next highest bid isselected 98 and the steps of FIG. 9 are repeated.

[0045] The exemplary electronic auction system of the present inventionalso provides a “Dutch Auction” format, wherein the electronic auctionsystem awards the merchandise to all of the top bidders for whom thereis available inventory at the price bid by the lowest successful bidder.This format may be preferred by customers for being the most fair when aplurality of a specific item is being auctioned. As with all bidding,there will be a range of bids submitted. In the Dutch Auction format,the highest bidders are awarded the merchandise but at the same pricefor all successful bidders, the price bid by the lowest successfulbidder.

[0046]FIG. 10 illustrates the exemplary Dutch Auction format whereby bidmanager 55 shown in FIG. 6 determines which bids to mark 66 assuccessful or unsuccessful, as shown in FIG. 7. Bid manager 55 begins bysorting 111 the bids by amount of the bid. If there are bids remainingto be processed, as determined at step 97 the highest bid is selected 98to be checked. If the bid is below the minimum bid allowed for theparticular merchandise item, as determined at step 93, the bid is markedas unsuccessful 99. If not, the bid is checked 94 to see if the bidquantity may be satisfied. If the bid cannot be satisfied, then the bidis marked as unsuccessful at step 99. If the bid quantity can besatisfied, then the bid is marked as successful at step 95 and the itemquantity remaining is decremented 96 by the bid quantity. At this timethe MinWin price is recorded 117. The MinWin price is the price abovewhich a new bidder must bid in order to be successful in the DutchAuction format were the auction to close at that moment. The MinWinprice is, in general, the bid price of the lowest bid that is marked assuccessful. After recording the MinWin price at step 117, where thereare still bids remaining to be marked, as determined at step 97, thenext highest bid is selected 98 and the steps of FIG. 10 are repeated.

[0047] The exemplary electronic auction system may also include a“Progressive Auction” format, wherein the electronic auction systemawards the merchandise to the top bidders based on price bid. As withthe Dutch Auction format, the highest price bids are awarded themerchandise up to the quantity available of the item being auctioned.However, unlike the Dutch Auction format, the system awards themerchandise to the successful bidders at different prices depending onthe quantity bid. In the exemplary embodiment, a successful bidder for asingle unit of an item is awarded the item at the price of the lowestsuccessful bid for a single unit of the item. A successful bidder for ahigher quantity of the same item is awarded the item at the price of thelowest successful bid at that quantity or any lower quantity. Forexample, a successful bidder for a quantity of five would pay the lowestprice for any successful bid for quantity one through five of the item.The price paid for a given quantity is termed the “MinWin” price forthat quantity. The Progressive Auction format ensures that successfulbidders for a quantity of an item pay the lowest price paid by any othersuccessful bidder at that quantity level or below. Use of this formatleads to lower prices for those who successfully bid on largerquantities of an item, provides an impetus for volume buying, andtherefore leads to greater sales volume.

[0048]FIG. 11 illustrates the exemplary Progressive Auction format,wherein bid manager 55 shown in FIG. 6 determines which bids to mark assuccessful or unsuccessful 66 as shown in FIG. 7. Bid manager 55 beginsby sorting 131 the bids by amount of the bid. If there are bidsremaining to be processed, as determined at step 97, the highest bid isselected 98 to be checked. If the bid is determined to be below theminimum bid allowed for the particular merchandise item at step 93, thebid is marked as unsuccessful 99. If not, the bid is checked at step 94to see if the bid quantity can be satisfied. If not, then the bid ismarked 99 as unsuccessful. If the bid quantity is checked and found tobe satisfied at step 94, then the bid is marked as successful 95 and theitem quantity remaining is decremented 96 by the bid quantity. TheMinWin price is then recorded 137. The MinWin price is the price abovewhich a new bidder must bid in order to be successful in the ProgressiveAuction format were the auction to close at that moment. The MinWinprice is, in general, the bid price of the lowest bid at the current bidquantity or lower that is marked as successful. After recording theMinWin price 137, if there are still bids remaining to be marked, thenext highest bid is selected 98 and the steps of FIG. 11 are repeated.

[0049] The exemplary electronic auction system may also include a “BuyOr Bid” format wherein the electronic auction system awards merchandiseto bidders who place bids at or above a posted selling price. The itemremains for sale until the available quantity is purchased. Bids thatare below the posted selling price are maintained in reserve by thesystem. If a certain sales volume is not achieved in a specified periodof time, the electronic auction system automatically reduces the priceby a predetermined amount or a predetermined percentage of the price andupdates the merchandise catalog page accordingly. The lower price may beat or below some of the bids already in the bid database. If such bidsare present, they are then converted to orders and the quantityavailable is reduced accordingly. Similarly, if a certain sales volumeis exceeded in a specified period of time, the electronic auction systemautomatically increases the price by a set amount or by a set percentageof the price and updates the merchandise page accordingly. Theseautomatic price changes allow the seller to respond quickly to marketconditions while keeping the price of the merchandise as high aspossible to the sellers benefit.

[0050]FIG. 12 illustrates the exemplary Buy Or Bid format whereby bidmanager 55, as shown in FIG. 6, determines which bids to mark assuccessful or unsuccessful 66, as shown in FIG. 7. Bid manager 55 beginsby sorting 151 the bids by amount. If there are bids remaining to beprocessed, as determined at step 97, the highest bid is selected 98 tobe checked. If the bid is below the current price of the merchandiseitem, as determined at 93, then the bid is marked 99 unsuccessful. Ifthe bid is not below the current price, as determined at 93, then thebid is checked 94 to see if the bid quantity can be satisfied. If not,the bid is marked as unsuccessful 99. If the bid quantity can besatisfied, then the bid is converted into an order 155 at the currentprice of the item and the item's quantity remaining is decremented 96.The bids remaining to be processed, as determined at 97, are thenchecked and the steps of FIG. 11 are repeated. From time to time, thecurrent price of the merchandise item may be raised or lowered either bymanual input from an operator 300 as shown in FIG. 1 or by automaticallyusing the “markdown” feature described below with reference to FIG. 14.

[0051]FIG. 13 illustrates in more detail the step of determining if thebid quantity can be satisfied 94. If the bid quantity is determined tobe less than the available quantity of the merchandise item at step 171,then the test is found satisfied at step 174. If not, then the bid ischecked at 172 to see if the bidder is willing to accept a reducedquantity. When placing a bid, the bidder indicates its willingness toaccept a partial quantity in the event that an insufficient quantity ofthe item is available to satisfy the bid if successful. If the bidder isfound willing to accept a reduced quantity at 172, then the test isfound satisfied at 174. If not, the test fails at 173 and the bid ismarked as unsuccessful at, for example, 99 in FIG. 9.

[0052] The exemplary electronic auction system also includes a“markdown” feature, wherein the electronic auction system awardsmerchandise to buyers who place orders at the currently posted sellingprice. The item remains on sale until the available quantity ispurchased. If a certain sales volume is not achieved in a specifiedperiod of time, the electronic auction system automatically reduces theprice by a set amount or a set percentage and updates the merchandisecatalog page accordingly. This lower price encourages buyers to takeadvantage of the new price. If a certain sales volume is exceeded in aspecified period of time, the electronic auction system automaticallyincreases the price by a set amount or a set percentage and updates themerchandise page accordingly. These automatic price changes allow thesystem to respond to market conditions while keeping the prices of themerchandise as high as possible to the seller's benefit.

[0053]FIG. 14 illustrates the exemplary Markdown price adjustmentfeature whereby auction manager 26, as shown in FIG. 4, periodicallyadjusts 54 the sales prices or minimum bid prices, of the merchandiseitems according to a predetermined schedule as shown in FIG. 6. If moremerchandise items are found in the merchandise database at 181, amerchandise item is selected 183 for Markdown. If a Markdown event hasoccurred for the item, as determined at 184, the item's price isadjusted 185 according to the schedule preset for the individual item.Alternatively, the adjustment could be relative to prices offered forthe merchandise. The merchandise item is then updated 186 in thedatabase with the new sale price or minimum bid price. The steps of FIG.14 are then repeated for each successive merchandise item in themerchandise database.

[0054] The exemplary electronic auction system may include a “ProxyBidding” feature that may be applied to any of the auction formatsdescribed above. FIG. 7 fully describes auction manager 26 including theProxy Bidding feature. When Proxy Bidding is employed, a bidder places abid for the maximum amount they are willing to pay. The electronicauction system, however, only displays the amount necessary to win theitem up to the amount of the currently high proxy bids of other bidders.Typically, the currently high bids display an amount that is one biddingincrement above the second highest bid or bids, although a percentageabove the second highest bids may be used as well. When a new bidderplaces a bid that is above a currently displayed high bid, the proxyfeature will, in general, cause the currently high bid to move up to anamount higher than the new bid, up to the maximum amount of thecurrently high bidder's proxy bid. Once a new bidder places a bid inexcess of the currently high bidder's proxy bid, the new bid becomes thecurrent high bid and the previous high bid becomes the second highestbid. This feature allows bidders to participate in the electronicauction without revealing to the other bidders the extent to which theyare willing to increase their bids, while maintaining control of theirmaximum bid without closely monitoring the bidding. Participation isengaged in automatically on the bidder's behalf by the inventive system.The feature guarantees proxy bidders the lowest possible price up to aspecified maximum without requiring frequent inquiries as to the stateof the bidding.

[0055] A variety of different auction formats may be implemented inaddition to those described above. The exemplary electronic auctionsystem may, for example, also employ a “Floating Closing Time” featurewhereby the auction for a particular item is automatically closed if nonew bids are received within a predetermined time interval. This featurewould typically be implemented in a manner similar to that used to closeauctions of old items, as shown at step 53 in FIG. 6. This featureforces the bidding activity to occur within a shorter amount of timethan would otherwise be achieved because bidders are aware that the itemwill automatically close if no new bids have been received in a timelymanner. Thus, bidders have an incentive to stay active in the biddingprocess to avoid closure of an item before maximum, and most potentiallywinning, bids have been entered. The Floating Closing Time feature alsoallows more items to be auctioned during a period of time since eachitem is closed once bidding activity ceases; the bidding period is notprotracted to an artificial length as is the case when an item closes ata preset date and time. The Floating Closing Time feature of the presentinvention may be employed either in conjunction with or independent of afixed closing time for an item. When employed in conjunction with afixed closing time, the auction is closed either when the preset fixedtime period has expired for the item or when no bidding activity hasoccurred within a preset time interval. This forces the bidding to ceaseat a particular time in case the bidding activity becomes artificiallyprotracted.

[0056] Thus, a method and system for performing a Buy or Bid auction isdisclosed. A general description of the present invention as well as anexemplary embodiment of the present invention has been set forth above.Those skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains willrecognize and be able to practice additional variations in the methodsand system described which fall within the teachings of this invention.For example, although the exemplary embodiment of the present inventionchooses winning bids according to monetary amount included in the bid,preference for bids may also be determined according to time ofsubmission, quantity of merchandise bid for, total bid value, or somecombination of these characteristics. Accordingly, all suchmodifications and additions are deemed to be within the scope of theinvention which is to be limited only by the claims appended hereto.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method to facilitate an electronic commercetransaction, the method including: receiving an offer for an item from auser of an electronic commerce system, wherein the item is available forpurchase via an auction facilitated by the electronic commerce system;and automatically awarding the item to the user if the offer is at orabove a posted selling price.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein theawarding includes converting the offer to an order for the item.
 3. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the offer comprises a bid.
 4. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising maintaining the offer in reserve if theoffer is below the posted selling price.
 5. The method of claim 1,further comprising: automatically reducing the posted selling price uponfailing to achieve a certain sales volume within a specific time period;and updating a merchandise catalog page to present the reduced postedselling price.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the posted sellingprice is reduced by a predetermined amount.
 7. The method of claim 5,wherein the posted selling price is reduced by a percentage of theposted selling price.
 8. The method of claim 1, further comprisingautomatically increasing the posted selling price upon exceeding acertain sales volume within a specific time period.
 9. The method ofclaim 8, wherein the posted selling price is reduced by a predeterminedamount.
 10. The method of claim 8, wherein the posted selling price isreduced by a percentage of the posted selling price.
 11. An electroniccommerce system, comprising a manager automatically to award an auctionitem to a bidder if an offer is at or above a posted selling price via aweb-based form across a network.
 12. The system of claim 11, furthercomprising: a bid validator, coupled to the manager via the network, toreceive the offer as a bid from a bidder via a web-based form across thenetwork.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein the manager is to convertthe offer to an order for the item.
 14. The system of claim 11, whereinthe system is to maintain the offer in reserve if the offer is below theposted selling price.
 15. The system of claim 11, wherein the manager isautomatically to reduce the posted selling price upon receiving anindication that a certain sales volume was not achieved within aspecific time period; and the system further includes: a merchandisecatalog page generator to update a merchandise catalog page based oninstructions received from the manager to display the reduced postedselling price.
 16. The system of claim 15, wherein the manager is toreduce the posted selling price by a predetermined amount.
 17. Thesystem of claim 15, wherein the manager is to reduce the posted sellingprice by a percentage of the posted selling price.
 18. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the manager is automatically to increase the postedselling price upon determining that a certain sales volume was achievedwithin a specific time period; the system further comprising: amerchandise catalog page generator to update a merchandise catalog pagebased on instructions received from the manager to display the increasedposted selling price.
 19. The system of claim 18, wherein the manager isto increase the posted selling price by a predetermined amount.
 20. Thesystem of claim 18, wherein the manager is to increase the postedselling price by a percentage of the posted selling price.
 21. Amachine-readable medium having executable instructions to cause one ormore machines to perform a method to facilitate an electronictransaction, the method including: receiving an offer for an item from auser of an electronic commerce system, wherein the item is available forpurchase via an auction facilitated by the electronic commerce system;and automatically awarding the item to the user if the offer is at orabove a posted selling price.
 22. The machine-readable medium of claim21, wherein the awarding includes converting the offer to an order forthe item.
 23. The machine-readable medium of claim 21, wherein the offercomprises a bid.
 24. The machine-readable medium of claim 21, furthercomprising maintaining the offer in reserve if the offer is below theposted selling price.
 25. The machine-readable medium of claim 21,further comprising: automatically reducing the posted selling price uponfailing to achieve a certain sales volume within a specific time period;and updating a merchandise catalog page to present the reduced postedselling price.
 26. The machine-readable medium of claim 25, wherein theposted selling price is reduced by a predetermined amount.
 27. Themachine-readable medium of claim 25, wherein the posted selling price isreduced by a percentage of the posted selling price.
 28. Themachine-readable medium of claim 21, further comprising automaticallyincreasing the posted selling price upon exceeding a certain salesvolume within a specific time period.
 29. The machine-readable medium ofclaim 28, wherein the posted selling price is increased by apredetermined amount.
 30. The machine-readable medium of claim 28,wherein the posted selling price is increased by a percentage of theposted selling price.
 31. An electronic auction system, comprisingmanager means for automatically awarding an auction item to a bidder ifan offer is at or above a posted selling price via a web-based formacross a network; and storage means coupled to the manager means, forstoring the posted selling price.
 32. The system of claim 31, furthercomprising: a validating means, coupled to the manager means via thenetwork, for receiving a bid from a bidder via a web-based form acrossthe network.
 33. The system of claim 31, wherein the manager means isfor converting the bid to an order for the item.
 34. The system of claim31, wherein the system is for maintaining the bid in reserve if the bidis below the posted selling price.
 35. The system of claim 31, whereinthe manager means is for automatically reducing the posted selling priceupon receiving an indication that a certain sales volume was notachieved within a specific time period; and the system further includes:a merchandise catalog page generation means, coupled to the managermeans, for updating a merchandise catalog page based on instructionsreceived from the managing means for displaying the reduced postedselling price.
 36. The system of claim 35, wherein the manager means isfor reducing the posted selling price by a predetermined amount.
 37. Thesystem of claim 35, wherein the manager means is for reducing the postedselling price by a percentage of the posted selling price.
 38. Thesystem of claim 31, wherein the manager means is for automaticallyincreasing the posted selling price upon determining that a certainsales volume was achieved within a specific time period; the systemfurther comprising: a merchandise catalog page generation means forupdating a merchandise catalog page based on instructions received fromthe manager means to display the increased posted selling price.
 39. Thesystem of claim 38, wherein the manager means is for increasing theposted selling price by a predetermined amount.
 40. The system of claim38, wherein the manager means is for increasing the posted selling priceby a percentage of the posted selling price.